Bookshelf Tour 2016 – Intro Main Bookshelves

Over the last few months I already hinted a few times at this coming. A bookshelf tour for 2016 in pictures. Last year I did it in four parts thoughout August. This year I am will again do four parts for my main bookshelf tour. But I will also bring you this small introduction towards my shelves where I show you some things like decorations on the shelves, the whole set up of my shelves surrounding the tv, and some other places that I have started using in my front room.

Please keep in mind that these pictures were taken at the start of June as you see these posts .

Now as you might remember, my main book shelves are in our front living room where we sit the most. So my book shelves are always the centre of attention. I like it that way because I don’t have to make an effort to go see my books in a different room. Our shelves are build around our tv with Ikea shelves, the Billy ones. And yes, we were watching Black Sails when I took this picture. The middle portion also holds most of our box sets as the small case on the left holds more movies. Unfortunately the lighting wasn’t the best when I took this as we had a lot of clouds and rain for a period.

For those that are interested I have also added a close up of the middle part. Most box sets are series I am interested in. You all know I love Stargate so that is why there are so many boxes of those. We also really enjoyed Fringe. Other than that we also have Supernatural, BBC Merlin, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Sanctuary, Once Upon a Time, The Walking Dead, Haven, Under the Dome, Falling Skies, etc. I see a theme of fantasy and sci-fi. Like with my books, haha.

Those that are in the cube with the funko pop are still movies and tv shows we have to watch, or at the moment of taking this picture in any case.

The shelf with decorations is a bit of a mish mash of things. It has our two wedding pictures, plushies, various decorations and my tin with larger bookmarks. There are also some model train bits in the right corner from my husband and a funko pop of Marty McFly that I got him for his birthday earlier this year.

The little puppet I got from a friend in Mexico. Look at how cute it is. The cupcake is actually a piggy bank.

By the time this posts goes up though there should be glass doors in front of the bookshelves. I hope. As mentioned earlier we have Billy bookcases from IKEA, but they’ve been changing them around a lot. The doors we got are fitted for those bookcases after 2013, and we got ours earlier. But my husband has been figuring a way to get them on there anyway, without damaging the bookshelves I hope. This colour is also not available in my country anymore since a few months so we won’t be able to expand on it, which really sucks.

If you saw the bookshelf tour last year you saw I have one shelf of classics. But that one was getting a bit full so I moved some of my classics elsewhere. On the other side of the living room I have a small cabinet where I have put these books on. The picture of my husband and I was taken in Egypt in 2009. Ah, we were so young back then. The white book is a fake one, where you can put things in. I don’t think we have anything in there though. Next to that you see Dutch copy of Around the World in Eighty Days by Jules Verne. Then there are the Dutch copies of Nobody’s Boy by Hector Malot and King Solomon’s Mines by H. Rider Hagard. Next up is the bind-up of The Chronicles of Narnia by C.S. Lewis that I have been slowly working my way through. Only three more to go which is a relief because these books just aren’t for me. The blue hardcover is an old copy of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe my husband got for his birthday when he was a child. The box set has three non-fiction books about ancient Rome, the Maya’s and the Pharaophs. We came across it on a book fest once and took it along. So far I’ve only read the Maya one though. Moving back towards the bookcase, you might have seen a small yellow stool with two steps on the left side. It’s from the Ikea that we used when we just bought our house and it had been full off paint splatters after a while. My husband painted it yellow for me and now I use it to put books on basically. The stacks on it do have a system.

On the top step and on the left side is where I put the books I’ve read that month. I like to keep them there so it is easier to grab the books to make a picture for my wrap up at the end of the month. Also quickly I can see how many books I’ve already read. The right stack is my physical TBR. Sometimes I would easily forget what I had actually put on my TBR for that month. Now I can see which ones I am meaning to read.

On the lower step on the left side I keep the books I bought that month. So I can easily make pictures for a book haul post, and it is again a quick reminder of how many books I have bought that month. Which is probably why these days I make pictures of books seperate and then quickly put them on my shelves, haha. And the right stack are books I picked off my shelves that I will put on the upstairs bookshelves at the end of the month.

Do any of you have a system like that? It just kind of came to be. Obviously I also use it to reach the top shelves. Because I’m so short, and my bookcases are rather high.

As you might have seen from the overview pictures, and from other pictures I have shared over time I do have some decorations scattered over the shelves. Of course I have some funko pops. My husband wants me to keep them in boxes though so only Belle gets to be a true free spirit. But just for this posts I took them out of the boxes to snap a quick picture of them all together. So starting from the back we have Captain Jack Sparrow with his gun. My husband and I love Pirates of the Carribean so we had to have that one. Another love we share is Harry Potter so we got this Harry with the sword which is apparently an exclusive edition or something. I had no idea when I ordered to be honest, haha. Of cours I HAD to have Jayne Cobb from Firefly. My favourite character from that show. And lastly there is Marty McFly from Back to the Future that I got for my husband as previously mentioned. Then we see Ghost, Ygritte, Daenerys and Rhaegal (I think) from Game of Thrones with sandwiched in between Belle from Belle and the Beast. In front of them are three mini’s that were in a Game of Thrones tin. There is Jon Snow, Tyrion Lanister (who refuses to stand up straight and needed Belle more than he will care to admit), and Daenerys again. I don’t really collect Game of Thrones Funko or Funko pop in general. But I do like getting a few of those that we like. Now onto to the other decorations. I took a lot of pictures of those but I decided to make a collage of four of them and not share others. There were just too many of them so this is just an impression. Do you have a lot of extra decorations on your bookshelves? Are they all bookish?

The cute little kitten on the cushion is one I’ve had for so long in my bedroom back when I still lived at home. It automatically moved with me. Next to that there is a photo of a stone girl reading a book. She wears a bit of sailor type of uniform. I come from a sea town so that is why.

And of course my big meerkat statue had to be shared. I love it so much. The witch we bought during our first vacation in 2009 when we went to Austria with my car and our tent. I think we bought in Salzburg, but don’t pin me down on that. Next up we have a few book mark related things. Last year I got this cute book mark of the BFG by Roald Dahl. They have a few others of his other books and I’m kind of itching to buy those as well, but I haven’t so far. In any case it seemed a shame not to show it off. Of course next to that you see the thin with my taller book marks. I can’t fit them properly on most shelves so they are in the middle part. The card with Guilty of being a Book Junkie I got in a goody bag when I went to the Young Adult event in Almere. I liked it so I hung it on the side of one of the bookshelves. And last but not least there is the Blossom Books bookmark of Six of Crows by Leigh Bardugo. I really liked Six of Crows so I had to show that off as well.

My husband likes model trains. Can you tell? I gifted both of those to him (though one more as a gag gift). And hey, Thor didn’t seem to fit anywhere else. I have more of these little super hero pops around the shelf. Sometimes supermarkets do these things where if you spend a certain amount you get a sack with one of those to collect around movies that come out.

I really like the tea cup. It’s another one I took with me from when I still lived with my parents. And it seems to fit so well with my Alice in Wonderland book.

The card was created by an American friend with the idea of The Hobbit. And more trains on my Harry Potter shelf.

These minions I got the same way as Thor. We really like The Minions so I have various things of them like a backpack one of my online friends got for me a few years ago. Or we have these garden statues, only they aren’t in the garden but on top of these shelves. I just forgot to take a picture of those I just realized. Then I have a few post its to put in books if I want to mark something. Too bad mine never seem to stick to well. More meerkats. This one is so pretty. And near our tv I have a plushie of Scratt from Ice Age. He’s the cutest. We got him at Movie Park Germany. I have more, and mostly the smaller, book marks in my Blond Amsterdam mug that has a girl reading on it. It is so pretty with those colors. Blond Amsterdam has so many other cute things in mugs and so on.

Shut up, I’m Reading mub is from the Dutch publisher Blossom books. Too true, right? I should actually use it during my husband’s vacation when I need some reading time, haha. I also have a few bookish buttons.

Then of course my butterfly TBR jar, that I used more at the start of the year, but not so much in the last few months. Behind that is the Best of YA mug where you can choose between single, taken and mentally dating a ficional character. I had to have that one as well, haha. It used to be so true before I met Maarten. And last but not least our small statue of wolves and my classics TBR jar.

To wrap up this rather long post I will show you an overview of each book shelf seperate. The first part will be up in two weeks. On July 1st. A good way to start a new month, right? Don’t hesitate to ask any questions.

So annoying when Ikea changes colors.. I have two black Billy bookcases but one of them is older and has a different wood ‘print’ then the other and is slightly lighter. So of course I had to buy more books to cover it up a bit, problem solved :’)

Love your shelves! I don’t have a lot of decoration on mine except for Funko’s, but I saw some cute pictures of bookish mugs used as a holder for book marks. Might steal that idea!

I love meerkats! Did you watch the nature show Meerkat Manor? I loved that show. It did make me cry a lot though. I don’t care for Funko Pops (unpopular opinion, ha ha), so it saves me a lot of money. Those shelves are awesome. I am jealous. My college housemate begged me to read the Narnia books and I read the first one and had no want to read the others. I have repurposed our china cabinet to hold my classics and antique books. We also keep all our Harry Potter collectables in it. I really don’t have aything on my bookshelves but books at the moment because most of my nick knacks are packed away (tiny apartment). I am looking forward to the rest of your tour posts!

YES! I used to watch that all the time when it was on here!
Though I have a bunch of them I do get why they might not appeal to others, so I get it. 🙂
Haha, I get the feeling. I’m reading them because they were a big part of Maarten’s book history when he was younger from time to time I give one of them a try.

That is always great when you can have a seperate cabinet or shelf for certain books. 🙂

Welcome to A Dance with Books

I’m Annemieke. A Dutch book blogger who blogs in English. But I’m also a wife and mom. I prefer to read fantasy (adult and young adult) books but sometimes I deviate from that genre a little. Feel free to leave me a comment or contact me through other social media accounts. I always welcome a chat.

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Since Photobucket has enabled the abbility to show photos on third parties sites in June 2017, a lot of picture are not showing. This means that a lot of posts are without photos. I do not own all of these pictures anymore. Please give me a while to be able to remove and possibly restore these photos in posts. Thank you! <3